Bear It Out to the Edge of Doom
by PorcupineGirl
Summary: Sherlock's suicide "note" is haunting John in the days after his death. John sees it as his duty to carry out Sherlock's final wishes, even as he struggles to understand the things he's discovering. Old title: Noteworthy
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Note transcript comes from arianedevere's episode transcript on LJ. Thanks to my husband for grammar/tense-checking, despite his distaste for fanfiction. I had to interrupt writing my other Sherlock fic (and another one-shot I'm working on) to get this out of my head, but that one will be updated soon. Hope you enjoy!**

John Watson's mind is not like Sherlock's.

Not like Sherlock's was.

It's a good mind. A fine mind. But it's an upscale four-bedroom home with a larger than average garden. Not a palace.

There's more than enough room to live in. Enough to store his medical training for nearly immediate recall when needed. Enough for the important things. His memory isn't photographic by any stretch; usually there's room for the gist of things, but not rote memorization.

But this... this is an important thing. This gets the living room all to itself right now.

His last conversation. His note. John remembers every word of it, every nuance of his inflections and tone. He can't remember having a memory this clear, ever in his life.

In the hours after, it plays on a nonstop loop.

It's his note. His note. Notes aren't meant to be spoken into a mobile phone, they're meant to be written, permanent. John writes it down. Word for word. He types it. He writes it again, on a different type of paper. It has to look right, this is his _note_ god damn it, his last words, it's got to be _right_. He wishes it were in Sherlock's handwriting. Then it would be right.

In the days after, he needs something solid. Something tactile to hold onto. A piece of him, a last piece. He reads it and rereads it, writes it out again, reads it again. The words are on the paper; his mind still supplies the tone. The frantic tone in the beginning. The tears in his voice later on.

_John. Turn around and walk back the way you came now.  
__Just do as I ask. Please.  
__Stop there. Okay, look up. I'm on the rooftop.  
__I, I, I can't come down, so we'll ... we'll just have to do it like this.  
__An apology. It's all true. Everything they said about me. I invented Moriarty.  
__I'm a fake. The newspapers were right all along. I want you to tell Lestrade; I want you to tell Mrs Hudson, and Molly ... in fact, tell anyone who will listen to you that I created Moriarty for my own purposes.  
__Nobody could be that clever. I researched you. Before we met I discovered everything that I could to impress you. It's a trick. Just a magic trick.  
__No, stay exactly where you are. Don't move.  
__Keep your eyes fixed on me. Please, will you do this for me?  
__This phone call ... it's, um, it's my note. It's what people do, don't they ... leave a note?  
__Goodbye, John._

It's so painful to read, but it's all he has. It's his last thread to cling to, keeping him from losing it. It becomes like a mantra, the words losing meaning.

...

After a week, the worst of the smoke clogging his mind starts to lift. He moves out of the motel he's been staying in, back to the flat. He starts to feel again. One minute he's angry, tearing up his current copy of the note. _How the hell could you give me such a shitty farewell? Where do you get off? Your last words, lies to your best friend._

The next, remorseful. Printing a new copy. _I'm sorry, they're your last words, they're important, I'm an awful friend, I can't believe I did that. This copy will stay pristine, I promise._ Until two hours later when he's tearing it up again.

Suddenly, nine days after, he's rereading the note when he sits up straight.

"Oh God!" Now he's talking to himself out loud. Great. Oh well. "These aren't just your last words, it's your last request! Your dying wish! For me to. . to lie about you to our friends. That's awful. What were you thinking?"

He pauses, frowns at the note as if seeing it for the first time. "What _were_ you thinking?" Sherlock would never have made such an absurd request without a reason. _I can't do it, Sherlock. I can't honor your memory by desecrating it. I can't handle the burden of being the only one on earth to know the truth. I can't... but I wouldn't be, would I? The others, they might believe it coming from me, but Mycroft knows. You didn't list him, and he's the only one who knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Moriarty exists. Could I handle it if I can go yell at him now and then? That might help._

John takes a day to sit on this. He watches the telly, he applies for a job, he goes through the motions of being alive. He wonders if he can shoulder this burden for his friend. He misses him. When it hits him it's still like a boulder, in these early days. He knows it will get easier, doesn't know if he wants it to. Has to sit down from the force of it. John will do anything for Sherlock, even dead. If he says to lie, he'll lie. There must be a reason. There must be. He has to trust Sherlock one more time.

...

On day ten, he calls Greg.

"I've... I've been going through his things, and I thought you should know..."

A pause. A long pause. Can he really do this?

"Know what? John, are you sure you're okay?"

"He... It... It's all true. I mean, the newspapers. Donovan. They were right. He was having us on the whole time."

"What? No. What did you find? Are you sure? Maybe you should let me look at whatever it is you've found, I'm sure you're not in any condition to -"

"No, it's - it's all right. I'd rather not show you just yet, it's still... It hurts. The pain's still a bit too fresh. But can you... can you just take my word for it, Greg? I know that won't hold up in an investigation, but I just... just thought you should know. Personally."

He wishes he could tell Lestrade how grateful he is for the skepticism. To know that he's not the only one who still believes. _I might need to fabricate some "proof" one of these days,_ he thinks wearily, wondering if he'll ever have the energy for something like that again.

Exactly two weeks. He goes down to have tea with Mrs Hudson. Can't do it. He falls asleep with the note in his hand.

He does it the next day, though. As gently and carefully as he can. It hurts so much to hurt her, it hurts so much to lie about him. He hopes he's doing the right thing. But Sherlock was explicit. After this, Molly will be a piece of cake.

Day seventeen. He knocks on the door of her lab. When she answers, she's oddly flustered.

"John! You're here! I mean... I mean, why are you here? I mean, sorry. That sounded awful. How are you?" She's always been a rather nervous woman, but this feels out of place even for her. But she's had a shock, too, hasn't she? And about to get a bigger one. He's too busy pushing down his guilt as they make small talk to worry about whether or not it feels like she's hiding something.

"Molly, I have to tell you something. Something... not pleasant to hear."

"Okay." She nods firmly, seems to brace herself. Well, he _has_ just said he's going to tell her something unpleasant.

"Sherlock... Well, I've been going through his things, and I found some documents. Contracts between him and that actor fellow. The newspapers were right, he was..." Clears his throat. The lie is easier than if it were the truth, but not that much. "He was lying. To all of us. The whole time."

"Oh." Her expression is most curious - like she's trying on one after the other, seeing which is best. Of course, he can't expect her to know how to feel about something like that. "Well, that's awful. That's... that's horrible."

He tries not to be annoyed that she doesn't ask him how he knows, if he's sure, like the others did. Loyalty's one last stand. Maybe she just trusts John too much.

He leaves a few minutes later, feeling even worse than he had with Mrs Hudson. Her tears were awful, but Molly had made him feel guilty not just about the lie, but about her as well. She was acting so odd, she hadn't reacted at all how he expected, and now he can't help but feel suspicious of her, and guilty about that suspicion. Everyone deals with these things in their own way, don't they?

Day eighteen. "Anyone who will listen." He writes and then deletes without posting five different blog entries. He can't do it. Telling the lie is one thing; putting it in writing, there alongside so many true stories and even comments by Sherlock himself - he just can't. If he's asked, he'll lie. But the blog will remain untouched, a tribute to the truth that no one can know. People will think he's either too embarrassed to admit on it that he was wrong, or that he just abandoned it in his grief.

...

Three weeks have passed. He's starting to function again. Not really, not deep down, but he goes to the store and buys food and has something other than takeaway for dinner for the first time since. As he eats, he sits down with the note again. He hasn't looked at it in three days, since he decided not to post in the blog, but something has been nagging at him. He's being ridiculous. He puts it away.

One month. Lestrade calls, falling over himself with apologies, but could he possibly see the documents John found? Of course. John spends the rest of the day drawing up a "contract" between Sherlock and Richard Brook. Sherlock's signature is easier to forge than he expected. He spends the next day in bed, feels like he's been knocked back at least two weeks in his recovery.

Forty-one days. He might even consider himself human again. He went on a job interview today; the interviewer was more interested in hearing about his time with Sherlock than in his qualifications. Ugh. He knows what she was thinking - was he in on the deception, or was he duped? Everyone's wondering it now. If he wants to get a job, he's probably going to have to talk to the press at some point. The public forgave his silence for a month; obviously he was grieving and in shock. Now they'll want to hear his side of the story, and will assume the worst about him if he doesn't provide it. Soon. He carries his dinner into the sitting room, fishes around for something else to think about. Anything else.

His eyes land on the shelf where he stuck the note between two books nearly three weeks ago. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so he lets himself pull it back out. Scans it; the nagging feeling is back. He feels like he's missed something. He's done as he was told, hasn't he? He sits down at the desk and spreads it before him once more. Reads it over again carefully. This time, one line jumps out at him in a way it never had before.

_Keep your eyes fixed on me. Please, will you do this for me?_

Again, why? He wasn't that cruel, why would he insist that John watch him jump? John closes his eyes and pushes his food away as the memory overtakes him. Sherlock tosses the phone away, John yells, Sherlock falls over the edge - wait. Why did he toss his phone away onto the roof? Why not put it back in his pocket?

The answer comes to John immediately, but he shoves it away as wishful thinking. He casts around for other explanations, doesn't find any for five full minutes, before finally letting the thought form fully. _On the roof, it's safe. If it went down with him, it probably would have been destroyed. There's something on it he didn't want destroyed, and he wanted me to find it._

His hands are shaking. That's ridiculous. He _wants_ there to be something, one last communication from beyond the grave; that doesn't mean that there _is_ such a thing. He misses the intrigue of working on cases and is trying to create some himself. It's absurd, it's a manifestation of his grief. Ella would have a field day.

He manages to push the idea away long enough to get to bed. But at 2am he finds himself awake again after the now-familiar nightmare, tossing and turning and unable get the thought out of his head.

"Fine," he grumbles, getting up out of bed. "Can't hurt to check, can it, and then I can get some sleep."

The hospital had gathered up what personal effects they could find and gave the box to the next of kin. Mycroft, of course, had passed it on to John immediately, and it has sat untouched in Sherlock's room ever since. Now John opens the door to the room for the first time since the day of the burial.

He flicks on the light and pauses. He takes a deep breath as he looks around the familiar room, now invaded by several boxes of Sherlock's things moved in from other areas of the flat. At first he can't move, feels the tears misting up in his eyes again. After a moment he wipes them dry and breaks through the force field keeping him out of the room, heads straight to the box in question. Tries not to look at anything else, stay focused on his mission. A quick rummage through the box produces the mobile. He tries to switch it on... nothing happens. John squeezes his eyes shut and grinds his teeth. Of course not, of course it wouldn't still be charged over a month later. Nothing could be that easy, could it? Now where did he keep his charger...

He finally opens his eyes and scans the room. He knows Sherlock charged his mobile in his bedroom, he guesses it would have been by his bed so that it was easily accessible in the night. John goes to the nightstand, tries to ignore the other ephemera of his best friend's life lying around. The glass with an inch of water still in it, the first volume of the Feynman lectures with a bookmark sticking out halfway through, the - _stop it, you're ignoring it, remember?_

He locates the charger, dropped down behind the nightstand, unplugs it, and brings it into this own room. He finds that once the phone is plugged in, he has no trouble getting back to sleep knowing that he'll be investigating first thing in the morning.

When John wakes up on day 42, he grabs for the phone before he even gets out of bed. He pushes the button and the screen lights up. His hands are shaking again, and he reminds himself that this is probably all for nothing. There's probably nothing there.

Once the phone has started up, it asks for a passcode. Damn it. He slams it back down on his nightstand, feeling stupid for not seeing that coming. He clenched his jaw, willing himself not to cry. He wanted there to be something so _badly_; maybe this had been a bad idea from the start. Maybe finding nothing was worse than not trying at all.

After he's had a minute to calm down, he realizes that there are two possibilities: Either there is nothing, and the passcode is whatever Sherlock usually used and he was unlikely to guess it, or there is something, and Sherlock had reset the code to something he'd be able to guess. He idly tries the first few things to come to mind - 221B, JOHN, SHER. He doesn't expect any of them to work. They don't. He sighs and gets out of bed, grabs the note, and goes to make some tea.

With a hot mug in his hand, he sits down and spreads the note out in front of him, the phone lying next to it. If the clue leading him to the phone was here, the clue getting him into the phone will be, as well. It will be something that Sherlock thinks even he can figure out - but Sherlock wasn't always accurate about what John can and can't figure out. He sighs. This is a fool's errand, but he'll give himself today to worry over it. He's certainly not doing anything else, and it will make for a distraction. But if he can't get it today, he has to accept that there's nothing to find and move on. He nods, accepting the deal with himself.

He's only been staring at the note for an hour when he cocks his head to one side. Writing it down hadn't cleared it out of his head - he can still hear every detail of every inflection. And he knows - he'd known from the start - that some of it sounds rehearsed. Not all of it, but some of it Sherlock had clearly planned out beforehand. And here's what's odd, he realizes. Sherlock was not, in general, a stammerer. John is, certainly. Sometimes it feels like he can't get a sentence out without repeating something. Not Sherlock. But John hadn't thought much of the fact that he stammered a few times during the note, given what he was about to do and the state his mind must have been in at the time.

But.

John looks at the three places where Sherlock repeated himself. I, I, I; we'll, we'll; it's, um, it's - those were in fairly rehearsed bits. He hadn't known John would pull up in a cab right then, so the very start was off the cuff (and sounded so frantic, so scared, so - _stop it_), and of course whenever he'd responded directly to something John had said (crying, he'd been crying when he claimed it was all a trick - _focus_). But those sentences, they don't depend on context, they could have been planned in advance. And they sounded otherwise calm and smooth, not rushed and improvised. The stammering is definitely out of place. _Or you want it to be._

John's heart races as he picks up the phone and slowly punches in 3-2-1-1, braces himself for disappointment. He slides the unlock button to one side... and it works. John nearly drops the phone. Instead, he gently places it back on the table and gets up to get a new mug of tea. He realizes that he wasn't quite prepared for this - for being right. For Sherlock's note to actually contain not only instructions, but a code. A posthumous vote of confidence that John would pay attention and figure it out. John's insides are a jumble as he can't sort out whether he's more pleased that Sherlock's final thoughts of him were so positive, or apprehensive about what might be on that phone. He gets some peppermint tea out for his stomach, then realizes he hasn't eaten anything and grabs an apple to take back to the other room with him.

He eats the entire apple and drinks the peppermint tea dry while staring at, but not touching, the phone. By the time he's finished it's put itself to sleep again, and when he finally picks it back up he has to enter the code once more. 3-2-1-1. He can't help smiling when it works again, still not quite believing this is happening. It feels like magic.

He's not sure where to start as he scrolls through the various apps. Decides that messages would be an obvious place to leave a message, and pulls up a list of Sherlock's sent and received texts. Sure enough, at the top of the list is an unsent message to John. He feels like his heart might jump right out of his chest, isn't sure he wants to read it now, isn't sure he could ever prevent himself.

_I knew you'd get here._

_SH_

Attached is an audio file. John hopes it says a bit more than the text, realizes from the size it must say quite a bit more. Decides to shower and dress before he hits play.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I've changed the title and summary of this story - the old ones were more placeholders than anything. I might change the summary a few more times, but I think I'll stick with this title. I tend to use Shakespeare quotes as titles whenever possible, and this is the best I've found so far. Thanks for the reviews, favorites, and alerts!**

John steps back into the sitting room, hair still damp. Puts his shoes on while staring at the phone warily. He assumes the audio file must contain instructions of some kind, and he wants to be able to jump out and follow them immediately if necessary. He can't really imagine what else it could be - some vital information for the police? Sherlock wouldn't have told John to lie to everyone if he were going to later send him to the police to clear his name. A longer, more personal farewell? Right. That's a laugh. There must be some piece of unfinished business Sherlock wants him to attend to, and it must be easier to do (or only possible) if everyone thinks he was a fraud. Or at least thinks John thinks he was. Hm.

Chewing on his lip, he takes the phone in his hand and stares at it a bit more. Takes a deep breath, presses Play.

_"Ah. Here we are at last … you and me, Sherlock, and our problem … the final problem."_

The voice is muffled; the phone must have been in Sherlock's pocket. But there's no mistaking that it's Moriarty.

_"Stayin' alive! It's so boring, isn't it?"_

The recording continues. John has to pause it after Moriarty reveals the three snipers. He feels as though someone has reached into his chest and given the contents a twist. He jams the heels of his hands into his eyes, willing himself not to break down. "Jesus Christ, Sherlock," he mutters, and is glad not to hear his voice break, "My God. My God, what did you do?" The break finally comes on the last syllable, and he has to sit down and let out a few tears before he can continue. Not a fraud, not in any way - a hero. Sherlock Holmes died a fucking hero and he didn't want a soul to know about it but John. Jesus.

As he picks the phone back up and prepares to listen to the rest, a thought occurs to him. Three snipers. Moriarty thought Sherlock only cared about three people - modulo Mycroft; perhaps Moriarty thought Sherlock didn't care about him, or perhaps getting a sniper on him was just too risky. But Sherlock had wanted John to tell his lie to Molly as well. More importantly, he'd apologized for hurting her feelings once. There aren't many people Sherlock had apologized to in his life, and fewer still sincerely. John thinks they may have all been in the room that day, in fact. Clearly, Moriarty's time as Jim from IT had led him to believe that Sherlock really didn't care about Molly. It was such a small miscalculation, but telling. Moriarty hadn't known Sherlock quite as completely as he thought he did. Probably not important, but something to keep in mind.

John has to stop the recording again after the gunshot signaling Moriarty's death. He had known it was coming - the newspapers had had a field day with how Sherlock had "driven beloved children's television star Richard Brook to suicide before desperately offing himself" - but it's still startling, and only reminds him of what's to come. He hopes desperately that he doesn't have to listen to his own conversation. That one is already permanently etched into his brain.

After the gunshot, there are a few scuffling, swishing sounds. The phone was in Sherlock's pocket; he must be walking around, pulling it out. After a minute or so, it continues. Sherlock sounds upset, but not quite as frantic as he will when speaking to John directly just moments later. He speaks in the quick, clipped manner that John associates with deduction.

_"John. If you're listening to this, and I don't doubt that you will listen to it, I'm so, so sorry for what I'm about to do. As you've heard, I have little choice in the matter. I'm also sorry that I can't say everything I'd like to here - time is of the essence, and this recording may fall into the wrong hands. First, thank you. For being the best friend I've ever had and a better friend than I ever deserved, for believing in me, and, I hope, for following the directions I'm about to give you when we talk. I realize that lying about me goes against your nature, but it will simplify things greatly if the world believes Moriarty's ruse for the moment. And if you appear to believe it, they will believe it. Second, I have a book of Molly's that I borrowed. It's the only thing - well, the only tangible thing I owe anyone, and I'd like you to clear that debt for me. It's on my bedside table, please return it to her for me. And last, I hope that the man on the bicycle didn't hurt you too badly. Goodbye John, I have to go talk to you now."_

John doesn't exactly throw the phone, but to say he drops it would be understating the case. He pushes it from his body as though it's suddenly taken the form of a large cockroach.

"No," he tells it. "No, no, no. That - no, Sherlock. You didn't know about that. That happened after you were dead. You couldn't - I misheard. I must have misheard you."

He listens to Sherlock's message again. And again. Then listens to the last two sentences three more times. By the time he's done, he thinks he might start hyperventilating. He needs to talk to someone about this, he needs to confirm that he's not going crazy. There are only two people he can think of that he can possibly play this message for, and which to choose is obvious.

...

On day 45 he sits down in front of Ella for his regularly-scheduled therapy appointment. He's tried not to spend the past three days obsessing about the message, and it's been surprisingly easy. It seems his brain would rather pretend it never happened, and he's happy to play along. But he can't ignore it forever.

"How are you today, John?"

"I'm... I'm not quite sure, honestly."

"Has something happened?"

He licks his lips and pulls Sherlock's phone out of his coat pocket.

"I need you to listen to this. I need someone to, and you're bound by patient confidentiality laws. If you tell a soul what's on this recording, I'll have your license."

"John, I don't share the things my patients tell me with anyone, you know that."

"I think this might be, um... a bit more tempting than usual."

He's already told her about following Sherlock's last request, lying to their friends. Her line of questioning had made it fairly clear that she didn't think he was the one lying at all, but she hadn't pushed it. He'd considered changing therapists, but he knows that at this point, anyone he sees will react similarly. At least she hasn't pushed. She thinks she's letting him grieve, that denial is acceptable for now, but he's been able to tell that eventually she'll change her mind about that. Well, now she probably won't.

Her eyes grow wide as she listens to Sherlock's conversation with Moriarty. Her lips draw back in horror as Moriarty explains the trap he's laid. After the gunshot, she shakes her head, staring at the phone in disbelief. "What a sick, sick man!" John holds up a finger to silence her, and Sherlock begins his final instructions to John.

After the recording ends, she's left staring at the phone as if it's cursed. He gives her a minute to pull herself back together. Finally, she looks up at him.

"John, you have to take this to the police. If you don't, I'm afraid I'll have to."

"_No,_" he says firmly. "Patient confidentiality can only be breached when someone is being put at risk. If Moriarty were still alive, I'd agree. But nobody is at risk here. Both of these men are dead, and it won't impact anyone else. It would probably make my life a bit easier, but that's hardly something the law makes an exception for. You heard him. I don't know why, but if he says that people should believe he was a fraud, well - I trust him. You should, too, after what you've heard."

She nods slowly, though she doesn't look entirely convinced.

"Also - look, Ella, I'm not threatening you. God, that sounds great, doesn't it? But look, the only other person who knows for a fact, beyond any doubt, that Moriarty existed is Sherlock's brother Mycroft. And I already know that somehow he knows what happens in our meetings. He's quoted from your notebook to me."

Ella's eyes grow wide, she looks honestly scared now. "How -"

"He's in intelligence. He _is_ the British intelligence service, basically. I have no idea how he does it, but you can be rest assured that if you so much as tell your husband in bed tonight, he'll know. _Somehow_. And he can make your life difficult beyond simply losing your license. I don't condone his actions, I don't even like the man, I'm just warning you that that is the situation here. I am literally entrusting you with state secrets, and you need to act as though that's what this is."

"Why are you telling me this? Why did you play it for me?"

John sighs and rubs his forehead. Half of him wishes he hadn't, but the other half feels like he's been relieved of a huge burden - and isn't that the point of therapy? "I know, you're wishing right now I'd left you out of it. I just need _someone_ to agree I'm not crazy, and, well… my therapist seemed like a good start."

This seems to calm her down. She shifts in her seat a bit and resumes her detached therapist facade.

"John, you're not crazy." She tells him slowly. "I heard what's on that recording. Sherlock Holmes was not a fraud. James Moriarty forced him to kill himself to protect you and two other people, and before he did it he recorded a note to you. You're in no way delusional."

"It's - it's not actually that bit that I'm worried about."

"What is it, then?"

He purses his lips, sighs. "First off, let me tell you how I found this." It seems like a bit of context will help. If she understands that he's already gone down one rabbit hole to find this recording, maybe what comes next won't sound so absurd. After all, if he'd told her at last week's session that he was going to look for secret codes in his last conversation with Sherlock, she surely would have talked him out of it. Accused him of not wanting to let go. Well, he _doesn't_ want to let go, but in this case that's not the issue. He explains how he got here.

"You're saying he gave you a hint to look for the phone, _and_ the code to unlock it, all without saying anything directly? You're sure it couldn't have been a lucky guess, John?"

"I should play the lottery then, because I calculated the odds of guessing the code correctly and they're one in almost fifteen _million_. And he clearly did intend for me to listen to it, you agree? You think he would have taken a one in fifteen million chance on that?"

She nods slowly. "Okay. So he did leave you a code. What part of the message worries you?"

He replays the last sentences for her.

"You'd recently been hit by a cyclist?"

"No." John pauses to gather his courage. This is it, the statement that could land him in an institution. "The only time I've been hit by anyone on a bicycle in recent memory happened several minutes _after_ this recording was made. After Sherlock jumped. After he was already dead."

Ella's brows knit together. She looks down at her notebook, but doesn't write anything. John realizes she hasn't written anything down since he mentioned Mycroft. He hopes that didn't scare her too badly, but better she know the truth. When she speaks again, it is in her calm, slow therapist's voice.

"Let's assume for a minute that you're not forgetting an earlier accident, and he is talking about that. How would that be possible?"

John thanks her silently for not insisting that he's forgetting some previous bike accident, since he most assuredly is not. He speaks slowly and methodically. "Well, I suppose there are three options. First, he was clairvoyant. Second, he was a time traveler and had already gone forward in time to witness his own death. Third, he paid that bloke to run me over after he'd jumped." John swallows and gets the next bit out with some difficulty. _You know my methods._ "Remove the ones that are impossible and whatever's left, no matter how improbable, is the truth."

"Why would he do that?"

"I don't bloody well know, do I?" He's harsher than he intends to be, but he can't help it. This is the question that his brain has been avoiding for three days. He leans forward and rests his forehead on the heels of his hands. It took him weeks to get the images out of his head. He knows what he needs to do, but can't face it.

"John? Can you talk me through exactly what happened before, during, and just after the bicycle hit you?"

"No. I can't. I don't want to," he tells his lap. "I was traumatized enough without that damn bicycle tearing me away from him. I don't want to relive that."

"I understand. At some point, if you're able to, it might help you to understand his message. And I think it would help you get some closure that you desperately need."

Closure isn't really what he's worried about here, but he has to admit that she's probably right. He's been clinging to the note as his last piece of Sherlock. Even when he didn't look at it for days, even weeks, it was in the back if his mind. He can't let go until he's sure he's solved every puzzle laid out for him by his friend, followed every strange direction. He owes Sherlock so much more, but that will do for a start.

"How have you been sleeping, John?"

He's glad for the change of topic.


End file.
